Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner: We’re Getting Divorced

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have announced they’re getting a divorce.

“After much thought and careful consideration,” reads a joint statement from the couple, “we have made the difficult decision to divorce. We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to co-parenting our children whose privacy we ask to be respected during this difficult time.”

“This will be our only comment on this private, family matter. Thank you for understanding.”

Affleck and Garner got married in 2005 and have three children together: two daughters and a son. They began dating in 2004 after they worked together on Pearl Harbor (2001) and Daredevil (2003).

They became engaged in April 2005 and were married two months later in June during a private ceremony in Turks and Caicos.

During his 2013 Oscars acceptance speech when Argo won best picture, Affleck alluded to tension in the marriage, telling Garner, who sat in the audience, “I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work, but the best kind of work, and there’s no one I’d rather work with.”

The following month, Affleck appeared on Saturday Night Live to poke fun at the speech — and clarify his intentions.

“I thanked my wife, while saying the essence of marriage is work,” said Affleck during his opening monologue. “Some uncharitable souls on the Internet took that to mean our marriage is some kind of manual labor. That’s not it. You define what’s important to you by what you dedicate your time to.”

“I want to tell you how I wish I had ended that speech,” said Affleck. “I couldn’t do any of the things I do without you, without your support. You’re my angel, my wife, my world.”

Just last month, Garner told Yahoo! Parenting, “You just go on a ride together because you don’t know who you’re going to be when you first have a baby and you don’t know who [your partner] is going to be,” she said. “You have to just hang in there while you figure it out—and have a lot of patience for each other.”

“You can’t expect to be courted all the time, and I don’t want to court him right now; I don’t have the energy!” Garner told In Style last year. “But we’re definitely in a very mindful place where we’re making an effort to be together, do things at the same time, and be loving.”

Garner also appeared on various talk shows last year, describing a generally loving and physical relationship with her husband. She did a deep-voiced impression of Affleck on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon — “with love!” — and told Live with Kelly and Michael about how Affleck’s muscled Batman body made her feel like she was having an affair.